Frances Chang: The Magnetic, Uncanny Songwriting of a Brooklyn Artist
Frances Chang, a Brooklyn-based musician, has a knack for crafting songs that seem to follow private trains of thought, shifting their subtle musical colours in a way that slinks into your head. Her latest single, 'No Avatar,' is a conversational and serene piece, with little whorls of piano, skittish drum fizz, and softly flaring synths. The song's desire to avoid outward definition mirrors Chang's fragmented songwriting style, which is hard to pin down but deeply alluring.
Chang's music evokes an uncanny domesticity, with casual piano refrains, rainy percussion, and the melty haze of a horizon at dusk. Grooves slink in at the end of a song like a neighbour's cat making itself at home. Her sound shares a lot with the modern Copenhagen scene, but with more welcoming softness and warmth. Her January single 'I Can Feel the Waves' is a six-minute suite that starts edgy, then yields with gorgeous warped piano and disarmingly intimate focus.
Chang has recently signed to RVNG Intl, the label that launched Julia Holter and supported Cate Le Bon, both worthy comparisons for her elegant oddness. She released her debut cassette, 'Support Your Local Nihilist,' in 2022, and her debut album proper, 'Psychedelic Anxiety,' in 2024. Her new material strips back the noise for a limpid setting that lets her idiosyncratic lyricism shine. 'I Can Feel the Waves' is about remaining unknowable and cherishing the ever-renewing mysteries of relating to oneself and others.
This Week's Best New Tracks
Lambchop – 'Weakened'
Backed by guitar, choir, and Justin Vernon on banjo, this is one of the most simple and beautiful ballads in Kurt Wagner's 40-odd years of music, as he sings of the threshold between life and death.
Silvana Estrada and PabloPablo – 'Antes de Ti'
Estrada's music is always elegant, and here she and Madrid's PabloPablo lilt beautifully around her cuatro's light strings. Then a liquid, orchestral pivot opens up a cosmic portal.
Josh da Costa – 'Proving Me Right'
Formerly of duo CMON and drummer for Drugdealer and MGMT, Da Costa summons the spirit of Sparks for this new wave anthem, with a chorus pitching like a ship in a storm.
Martin Brugger – 'Knees, Hands, Shoulders, Teeth'
As head of the Squama label, Brugger releases vanguard experimental records. His own ambient music is stunning: softly clanking, mournful, with traces of Kentucky post-rock.
Bedouine – 'On My Own'
With contributions from the Lemon Twigs, this ballad is classic piano-driven MOR, but Bedouine's affecting vocals offset the grandeur with sadness and smallness.
Resonant Bodies – 'Failed Hornpipe for Jacken'
Also of Sheffield cabaret-doom-folk ensemble Slug Milk, Rob Bentall and Zebedee Budworth pare things back for a refined and hopeful 10-minute blossoming of nyckelharpa and hammered dulcimer that pelts to a heart-stopping finish.
Liz Lawrence – 'Exploded Into Flowers'
In 2024, UK singer-songwriter Lawrence endured the death of her sister aged just 35. This song, about the abundant floral tributes at her funeral, rooted in a robust repeating melody, is a powerful tribute.
